Compared to all the fuss which Mr PV Narasimha Rao's security advisers, lawyers and followers are creating today over his appearance before a magistrate, Indira Gandhi's readiness to submit to court summons in 1975 was remarkable even though she did not submit to the court verdict in the end. It was remarkable because she could have outflanked the court if she had wanted to. The times then were not so free or fearless as today. The bureaucracy was subservient and, though the judiciary had not yet become committed, the air was thick with rumours that dissent could bring regrettable reprisals. The people too were, by and large, not so exacting in their demands for punishment to wrongdoers in high offices, though a storm for her had begun rising in Bihar.

Yet, she chose not to make her going to the court a prestige issue, readily offering herself for cross-examination in a small, stuffy courtroom for four long hours on a rather hot spring day. May be she believed that the case against her was too weak to need worrying and, therefore, chose to obey the summons rather than outflank the court. May be she never thought any judge could dare give a verdict against her.

Of course, the case she faced was different in nature than the ones which are troubling Mr Rao today. Whereas Mr Rao is apprehending arrest as a co-accused in a criminal case of fraud and forgery, Indira Gandhi had merely been summoned for crossexamination as a defendant in a civil suit. The suit had arisen from an election petition seeking to unseat her for having used the services of a Government servant, Yashpal Kapoor, her OSD, as her election agent in the 1971 Lok Sabha poll. The suit was brought before the court by the maverick Samyukta Socialist Party leader Raj Narain who had lost the election to her in Rae Bareli by a big margin. He was a big, burly man with beefy hands and a broad face most of which was hidden behind a greying but well-trimmed beard. His manners had a certain rustic informality which his followers found charming but others found simply boorish. A born dissenter and a compulsive wrecker of reputations, he relished ruining his adversaries as much as he did ravaging his allies.

Raj Narain had filed an election petition against Indira Gandhi in 1971 itself but no one took much note of it. It was dismissed as yet another of his stunts but he pursued the petition through the next four years like a man possessed, finally forcing Indira Gandhi to appear before the Allahabad High Court on March 18, 1975. It was to be a historic day, though it did not feel that way at that time. The newspaper hardly thought it to be an important enough event to send their senior correspondents to Allahabad to cover her cross examination.

Only PTI and UNI sent teams to senior correspondents SPK Gupta and KDR came from the PTI and CK Arora from UNI. I went from Delhi to report for Patriot. My editor, Edatata Narayanan, had a very sensitive political antenna. He could catch emerging political trends from thin air. He thought the petition Indira Gandhi was facing could take a sudden turn for the worse for her. And, that is exactly what happened after that momentous day.

Economical with truth
A momentous day it was to prove, not doubt, but Allahabad was not really abuzz the morning Indira Gandhi came to the court. It did not feel a special day in any way. There was not much of a crowd outside the court. Only a few passersby stood in knots at the gate. There was no cavalcade of cars either. Courtroom No. 24 was small with bare, smudgy walls from which the whitewash was peeling. There was room for just about 20 or 30 people to sit. Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha sat on a raised platform behind a small table covered with a white tablecloth. By his side, and close to the entrance door.